[SOLVED] Copying an install from Btrfs to Ext4

Basically, I've had my fun, it's time to go back to a non-experimental fs

My plan is:

1) Boot into livecd2) mount the old root drive3) cp -a the old root drive to a backup drive4) format the old drive as ext45) cp -a everything from the backup back to the new ext4 formatted drive6) arch-chroot and fix fstab etc7) remove all mention of btrfs from kernel module config etc.

Re: [SOLVED] Copying an install from Btrfs to Ext4

Your plan is pretty much how I moved my install of a VM onto a physical drive (following the guide on the wiki)I'd use rsync -a instead of cp -a, since afaik it also verifies the files transferred correctly via checksum verification. Don't know if cp does.

Re: [SOLVED] Copying an install from Btrfs to Ext4

Re: [SOLVED] Copying an install from Btrfs to Ext4

I ended up doing a couple extra things:

1. I used dd to make a block level image of my btrfs disk out of paranoia2. I used cp -a to make a file level copy, this worked fine3. I generated my new fstab the usual way4. I needed to modify mkinitcpio.conf to remove btrfs modules5. [this was where I got hung up for a long time] I had to delete my old kernel images and completely regenerate them (pacman -S linux)6. I uninstalled btrfs-progs, mkinitcpio-btrfs, and snapper (though I have no idea if this was necessary. I admit I was flailing a bit for a while)

Re: [SOLVED] Copying an install from Btrfs to Ext4

I made similar migration recently and would like to add my 2 cents:

* if old partition was root then you need to modify 'root=' bootloader option (it is true for gummiboot and syslinux). * if computer has BIOS and the old partition was boot partition then one needs to rerun bootloader installer that updates partitions information. In case of syslinux I used syslinux-install_update tool.

To sync files I was using `rsync -av from to` though it is the same as `cp -a`.

I think this information is valuable and should be documented somewhere in wiki.

Re: [SOLVED] Copying an install from Btrfs to Ext4

what I made:- saved root files with cp -aRv to a temporary location- inserted the archlinux install usb drive- created a new ext4 partition to be the new root- copied the old files to the new ext4 partition- mounted the partitions and swaps- generated new fstab since its a new root and UUID (genfstab -U)- chrooted- grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg- mkinitcpio - p linux